


Odd Form of Gratitude

by RegalMisfortune



Series: Gods of Our Time [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Guess who made this a series, Lunar Skins!, Zarya aka the Black Turtle is a deity, lynx is still uncertain if they're hallucinating the whole event or not, this series is a disaster, zarya breaks into a house to thank someone and instead raids their fridge for leftovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 15:30:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13707330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RegalMisfortune/pseuds/RegalMisfortune
Summary: The Black Turtle breaks into the Oladele household while Lynx was staying over to thank them for the gift.It goes about as well as one would expect.





	Odd Form of Gratitude

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!
> 
> I'm back at it again for round two for this accidental series! This series won't be strictly a Zarya and Lynx one; instead I am going to practice writing other characters and situations between them in this sudden universe I am making on the fly. 
> 
> If you would like to suggest a pair of characters (or more) you would like to see interact, please feel free to ask! I am available on my [tumblr](http://regalmisfortune.tumblr.com/) or simply just leave it in the comments! c:

The clock on the small projection before them was reading 02:31. Lynx let out a sigh, their hand dropping to their chest and causing the projection to flicker and die as the small handheld was covered. There wasn’t much they could do at the Oladele’s, having been convinced by a joint effort of Mrs. Oladele and Efi into making them join the family for the rest of the evening. It resulted in Lynx laying on their soft leather couch, an old grandfather clock ticking away somewhere, bored out of their mind.

It wasn’t Efi’s fault in not knowing when they actually rested, the youngster having crawled under her own covers a little after 22:00 shortly followed by Orisa on habit. They themselves took literal power naps over the course of the day, which meant that they didn’t need to actually shut themselves down into a sleep mode. On most nights it was fine, leaving them with plenty of time to scour through the internal framework of governmental institutions or digging deep into the logs of some company. They couldn’t do much with their handheld, or at least nothing they want to draw attention to the Oladele’s. The family didn’t deserve to be dragged into a dangerous mess because of Lynx’s carelessness.

An auditory sensor twitched as it picked up a soft scuff of a foot in the kitchen, causing them to lift their head off the couch arm. Odd, they hadn’t heard anyone come down the stairs. Another scuff sounded, causing both sensors to perk as the familiar crack of the refrigerator opening tickled their senses.

Someone was in the kitchen at 02:31, someone decidedly _not_ one of the family members. And they were rummaging through… their fridge?

As quietly as they could, Lynx moved to stand the leather of the couch creaking a little as they rose to their feet. They paused, sensors raised to listen intently for any sign of the intruder noticing. They heard nothing but the sound of the Tupperware lid being pried off one of the leftover containers, a faint hum before the feet moved towards the area where the sink was, their footsteps both heavy and yet oddly muffled at the same time.

At being undiscovered, Lynx crept closer towards the doorway, the gurgling hum of the refrigerator in their auditory as the light from within cast dark, dancing shadows in the dimness of the kitchen, tinted by some other, eerie light that made the pale white light pick up a green hue.

Standing in front of the open refrigerator door, dish in one hand and fork in another, was a hulking figure standing higher than the appliance behind them. Its head turned towards Lynx, green eyes gleaming in the darkness as the rest of its body was caught in shadow, fork halfway up to its maw with some of the leftover stir fry in its hand. It was a dangerous mix of reptilian and human in shape, the darkness making it far more monstrous and Lynx’s internal workings to jar and heat up with sudden, overwhelming panic.

They threw their handheld at the creature.

It hit the side of its head with a metallic clunk, causing the creature to fumble to catch it, the fork dropping noisily into the container of leftovers. But Lynx’s feet were moving without their processes’ consent, scrambling in panic and the whirr of frantic fans as they all but dove towards the stairs, to wake up someone- anyone- that there was an intruder in their home. They were not a fighter, and despite how strange it was that said intruder would first raid the fridge, there was no way they could handle such a… a _creature_.

A massive hand clamped over their face, muffling out any noise that would leave them as a muscled arm pressed around their middle, curling them close and tight and oddly very very _cool_ against their physical sensors.

“Shh,” the creature tried to shush them, almost frantic themselves in their attempt as they all but pulled Lynx into their lap on the floor at the foot of the stairs, unfazed by the wild flailing of their legs and squirming in their vicelike grip. “This was not supposed to go like this at all. I am not going to hurt you. It’s okay.” It mixed trying to console and quiet Lynx while scolding themselves in nearly the same heavily-accented breath, the coolness of their fingers almost a welcoming balm against their overheating core.

“Let _go_ of me,” Lynx managed to spit out, their voice crackling slightly under the stress and muffled by the thick fingers over their face.

“Only if you do not run,” it- she, it almost sounded like- responded back, her words rumbling in her chest and against their auditory sensors. “I mean to talk to you. Peacefully. No harm shall come to this household.”

She sounded so _honest-_ Lynx made a noise that was similar to that of a snort- if not a bit staticy like a slightly untuned radio. They forced themselves to relax nevertheless, unable to escape the iron grip of the creature’s arm and only causing more strain to their systems than necessary. That seemed to be enough for the creature, as her arm loosened around their middle and the hand slid away from their face.

Lynx found themselves missing the coolness as they tried to regulate their internal temperature back to normal. She let them do so in quiet patience, although her arm was still loosely wrapped around their waist. Their jittery fingers tapped against the back of her hand in a silent bid to let go further, and she did so, abet reluctantly as the arm slithered away.

“Can you stand?” she broke the silence after a moment, her voice low and soft.

“I am _fine_ -!” Lynx griped back, but the creature seemed to be able to see right through the heat of their untruthful words as her arm appeared once again around their waist, listing them up as she rose to her feet as if they weighed less than a piece of paper. It was quick to end, though, as she carefully settled them back down onto their feet while they swayed a little.

“Couch,” was all they ordered, gripping onto the creature’s arm for support. Her bare arm. An arm cool to the touch yet thick and muscular. They really shouldn’t order the thing around, but while the panic faded, Lynx felt more irritated- both at the creature for breaking into the house and at themselves for losing control over themselves so quickly. The creature rumbled out a small laugh but did as she was told, leading the omnic towards the couch where they all but collapsed indignantly into the cushions.

The creature, meanwhile, flipped the nearby lamp on and for the first time Lynx could take a good look at the intruder in the soft glow.

It was definitely a woman, the green glow of her eyes blamed on the light reflecting off the gem-like eyes of her reptilian-shaped helm. She was wearing a chest piece of odd hexagonal off-black scales and gold trimmings, a thick belt around her waist. She looked human enough, although there was a sharpness to her teeth and an odd look to her green eyes, almost a predatory gleam regardless of how sincere she looked even as she squatted down by the front of the couch, leaning in close to peer at Lynx from over a small nose.

Lynx’s sensors flattened against their head, annoyed as the woman simpy stated at them, unblinkingly. “What?” they finally snapped, folding their arms over their chest in attempt to stifle the anxious stirring inside their chassis.

“You gave me an Offering,” the woman told them simply, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Perhaps to her it was, but for them they stared back at her, unimpressed.

“I would’ve remembered if I gave the likes of you anything,” they retorted. The woman seemed unfazed by their grouching, instead reaching back to a small pouch on the back of her belt.

“You gave me an Offering,” she repeated, her hand coming back in front of her, fingers unfurling to expose a familiar small screw in the palm of her hand. “No one’s given me an Offering in a long time.”

Lynx’s thought process stalled for a moment, looking from the screw to the woman before them. The only place they left a screw was in the temple, and that was hours ago. It should have been accidentally knocked off and rolled under a chair or something at this point, thrown out and swept away. That meant that this… crazy woman stole a screw, followed them to the Oladele’s, broke in, attempted to sample their leftovers, for… what?

“I am dreaming,” they stated dryly, propping their feet up onto the couch as they put their head back against the arm, pulling their hood over their face to blot out the visual sensations. “When I wake up, there will not be an insane woman with a screw in my friend’s house.”

It was the only thing that made sense. Lynx had read about lucid dreaming before, but that was only for humans. Omnics didn’t exactly dream, more like their internal workings trying to process old data fragments while they rested. This was definitely the most realistic one they had ever had, and one they’d rather not deal with at the moment.

“Who are you talking to, Lynx?”

Lynx never sat up faster in all their life, their hood stuck on their auditory sensors and jarring them uncomfortably as Efi tried to stifle a yawn and failing as she rubbed her eyes, hair frizzed out slightly from its usually semi-contained coils. She lifted her head, blinking blearily in the light from the lamp towards the couch from her perch on the bottom of the stair, but her eyes trailed from the frazzled Lynx to the strange woman wearing the ridiculous armor.

“Hello,” the woman said, lifting a hand in greeting like she hadn’t gone and broken into the place just to annoy Lynx.

Efi stared, the sleepiness from her eyes fading as they widened, first in surprise but then into curious awe.

“Are you a god?” she blurted out quietly, bare feet padding against the wood floors.

“I am,” the woman replied, the same time as Lynx quickly retorted “no she’s not”. Efi’s head pivoted between the pair of them before deciding to direct her attention to the stranger. She put her hands on her hips, mulling over the strange woman’s attire for a brief moment. The stranger let the child do so, quiet and patient.

“You don’t look like any deity I know,” Efi stated bluntly, a frown on her lips. It caused the woman to chuckle, a smile playing on her lips.

“Met a lot, have you, young one?” she quipped back in good nature.

“Well, no,” Efi admitted, pushing herself up onto the couch beside Lynx. “Did Lynx do anything bad? I promise to make sure they behave from now on!”

She sounded so assure of herself that it made Lynx splutter a little. “I didn’t do anything!” they replied indignantly, which only made the weird woman laugh.

“They gave me an Offering, and I wish to thank them for it.” A pause, then- “But perhaps that should wait another time. You two need to get some sleep.”

“Some sleep-?”

The sound of a heavy thump caused Lynx to jerk, all their setting going from dormant to high alert. A warm body against them stirred, a familiar grumbling of a sleeping Efi as she buried her face into the blue fabric of their coat, tucking herself away from the morning routine of her mother as she bustled about the kitchen.

Had it been a dream, then? Lynx wasn’t too sure, all their memories seeming far too real to being a figment of stray bits of memory and data strung together. But how and when did they turn themselves dormant for the night remained a mystery- not even they had an exact timestamp for it and the logs between the last memory (dream?) and now was an uncertain mess. It made Lynx uneasy, scrambling to piece together some sort of reasonable time frame from the bits they did remember clearly. Their systems _had_ overheated, but the reason why was left frustratingly void in their memory logs.

“Oh! I see you’re awake now,” Mrs. Oladele pulled Lynx from their internal cataloging as she poked her head out of the kitchen, her wild head of tightly wound curls held back by a bandana- red to match the flower print of her skirt. “Please tell Efi to return the leftover stir-fry dish back to the sink when she wakes up. Goodness knows where she put it after her midnight snacking and I’ve already lost good Tupperware to grease and oil.” She shook her head, a fond smile on her lips as she pulled her head back into the kitchen to tell Orisa to set the skillet down _gently_ this time, leaving Lynx staring after her in sinking shock. 


End file.
